"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"

He called again, lustily, leaped out from the trees, and went running

across the open space to the edge of the plateau by the sea. A tiny path

wound steeply down from here to the rocks below, and on it, just under

the concealing crest of the land, stood the padrone with Maddalena. Their

hands were linked together, as if they had caught at each other sharply

for sympathy or help. Their faces were tense and their lips parted. But

as they saw Gaspare's light figure leaping over the hill edge, his

dancing eyes fixed shrewdly, with a sort of boyish scolding, upon them,

their hands fell apart, their faces relaxed.

"Gasparino!" said Maurice. "It was you who called!"

"Si, signore."

He came up to them. Maddalena's oval face had flushed, and she dropped

the full lids over her black eyes as she said: "Buon giorno, Gaspare."

"Buon giorno, Donna Maddalena."

Then they stood there for a moment in silence. Maurice was the first to

speak again.

"But why did you come here?" he said. "How did you know?"

Already the sparkle of merriment had dropped out of Gaspare's face as the

feeling of jealousy, of not having been completely trusted, returned to

his mind.

"Did not the signore wish me to know?" he said, almost gruffly, with a

sort of sullen violence. "I am sorry."

Maurice touched the back of his hand, giving it a gentle, half-humorous

slap.

"Don't be an ass, Gaspare. But how could you guess where I had gone?"

"Where did you go before, signore, when you could not sleep?"

At this thrust Maurice imitated Maddalena and reddened slightly. It

seemed to him as if he had been living under glass while he had fancied

himself enclosed in rock that was impenetrable by human eyes. He tried to

laugh away his slight confusion.

"Gaspare, you are the most birbante boy in Sicily!" he said. "You are

like a Mago Africano."

"Signorino, you should trust me," returned the boy, sullenly.

His own words seemed to move him, as if their sound revealed to him the

whole of the injury that had been inflicted upon his amour propre, and

suddenly angry tears started into his eyes.

"I thought I was a servant of confidence" (un servitore di confidenza),

he added, bitterly.

Maurice was amazed at the depth of feeling thus abruptly shown to him.

This was the first time he had been permitted to look for a moment deep

down into that strange volcano, a young and passionate Sicilian heart. As

he looked, swift and short as was his glance, his amazement died away.

Narcissus saw himself in the stream. Maurice saw, or believed he saw, his

heart's image, trembling perhaps and indistinct, far down in the passion

of Gaspare. So could he have been with a padrone had fate made his

situation in life a different one. So could he have felt had something

been concealed from him.




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